Thursday, 27 November 2008

This morning at about 09:30 I was told that my adult class will have their closing ceremony tomorrow at 11am. I suppose the school have known about this for a while already, but in true Korean fashion everything is left to the very last. Suddenly it was important to find out who actually attends the class and phone them to inform them of the event.

The school gave me a list of the initial attendees in the beginning of the year. A third of those people never showed up and many of them didn’t come back after the first lesson. I am not sure what the school is telling the people, but it seems they don’t realise I only speak English. I made my own list at the beginning f the year, but quite a few people have come and gone, that I just got fed up and didn’t update it any more.

The teacher in charge brought me the initial list and asked me who was still in my class. I don’t know anyone’s Koreans name! I have 500 middle school students with Korean names and their names all sound the same. All the names are combinations of just ten sounds. In one class I have three girls with not just the same names, but the same family names as well. There are girls with the same name in a few other classes as well. Anyone who has been here for a while knows that it is nearly impossible to remember all these names.

I happen to have the phone numbers of two of the adults on my phone, so I gave him those. What he does with it is now up to him now.